Celine Dion May Never Perform Again
In a new documentary, the singer talks about her autoimmune disease and her love for singing.
Early in the documentary I Am: Celine Dion, you see a cellphone video of Dion lying on her side on the floor of a hotel room, moaning softly. She seems to want to speak but can’t get out any words. Her body is stiff, her position unnatural. In the background, you can hear a man calling the concierge and asking for “the fire department, please, and a rescue unit.” Another man tells Dion to push into his hand if she’s in pain, but it’s unclear if she can hear him. The scene would be difficult to watch even if its subject weren’t one of the most famous musicians in the world.
Soon after, the film cuts to archival footage of Dion onstage in Las Vegas, in a bedazzled gold jacket, belting her first No. 1 hit in the United States, “The Power of Love.” She winks at the camera, rocks to the beat, and pumps her arms, looking completely in her element. Her love of performing seems innate—the same delight shines in her eyes in clips of her as a teenager, learning English and launching her career in Quebec, and in later decades, as her star rose. The Las Vegas scene reminds us not only how much we’re missing Dion during her hiatus from performing, but also how much she is missing us.
The documentary was filmed over several years as a team of caregivers have worked to address Dion’s rare illness: stiff-person syndrome, an autoimmune disease that affects just one or two out of every 1 million people and is not well understood. Large parts of the body go rigid during spastic episodes. Many people with the condition develop anxiety and agoraphobia. Dion says that her lungs are fine, but everything outside them is rigid, which makes singing impossible. A few moments of creative editing are overly stylized, which is a shame because her condition needs no dramatization. It is degenerative and can be fatal.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | September 3, 2024 7:45 PM
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Oh, well. She had a good run.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 18, 2024 9:12 PM
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Oh god talk about milking your disease for every last fucking dollar.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 18, 2024 9:12 PM
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She's been lip-syncing her shows for ages anyway.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 18, 2024 9:14 PM
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Sad last years, you mean, R3.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 18, 2024 9:15 PM
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She’s looked sick for about 2 decades.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 18, 2024 10:16 PM
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I just saw the documentary and it was heartbreaking. She said she's had symptoms of SPS since 2008 and often blamed microphones or did tricks like having the audience sing in order to cover it up. She said she was, at one point, taking almost fatal amounts of Valium daily (90mg) just to keep the symptoms at bay, and she could have died. In the documentary, there is a long segment near the end where she has a seizure. It's terrifying. I feel horrible for her. Who is going to take over the kids if she gets worse?
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | September 3, 2024 3:58 PM
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She performed at the Olympic opening ceremony just fine. No Vegas residency for her anymore, obviously, but she can still do an appearance here and there.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | September 3, 2024 4:29 PM
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I've read that she's preparing for a new Las Vegas residency. Seems like a lot to pull off if true.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | September 3, 2024 4:32 PM
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This bitch is so dramatic. No wonder Lady Gag-ga 'loves her' - that black Jackie Kennedy veil at Rene's funeral, and her 'heart will go on' comment....just yuck. I can't stand her music or her baloney.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | September 3, 2024 5:22 PM
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I hate to be *that* person... but I swear her physical therapist was smirking when she was experiencing that seizure in the doc. It's like the experts know she's being dramatic and it's not actually that bad.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | September 3, 2024 5:46 PM
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Glad to see some of you are seeing through her bullshit. I'm sure she's a nice woman, but she's indeed a drama queen and she's a liar. Blamed microphones for her inability to sing? Had the audience pick up the slack? GURL, PLEASE. Celine has lip synched her shows and concerts for decades. And she's BAD at it. I've seen better lip synching from drag queens! She always tries to oversell it to the point where she'll have this shocked/startled look upon her face upon "completing" a difficult part, as if she herself can't believe the sound [supposedly] coming out of her own mouth. It's ridiculous. There are numerous videos on YT exposing her lip synching fails going all the way back to the '90s.
These celebrity documentaries always have one purpose: Ingratiation. What better way to ensure sold out crowds at her new Vegas residency than to make sure everyone and their brother knows what a MIRACLE it is that the show is even happening!? Get your tickets now!
PS. I lived and worked in Vegas in the early '00s when her Caesar's show was still new. This woman cancelled shows left and right, leaving her diehard fans--who'd often flown from Canada to Vegas solely to see her--hanging (and highly miffed). I can't tell you how commonplace this was. Weekly, it seemed. If she doesn't feel like going in to work, she doesn't.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | September 3, 2024 6:06 PM
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Valerie Harper with better pipes.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | September 3, 2024 6:06 PM
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R13 so... you don't think that's her really singing on her records?
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | September 3, 2024 6:26 PM
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[quote]so... you don't think that's her really singing on her records?
I said shows and concerts. If you go to one of her shows, all you're seeing is Celine moving her lips to her own CD. I guess when the CD skips she blames the microphone and has the audience take over.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | September 3, 2024 6:36 PM
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R17 fair enough. I think a lot of live performers who can sing, or maybe used to be able to sing more, than at their current age, do this. Celine said she's been experiencing symptoms since 2008 so that was before the Vegas residency. Who knows. I wondered if the illness was maybe a cover-up for drug addiction when I first heard the news, and she had been looking unwell for so long. But after that documentary, I believe her. YMMV. It could be a combination of both things.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | September 3, 2024 6:43 PM
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[quote] Celine said she's been experiencing symptoms since 2008 so that was before the Vegas residency.
Celine started her Ceasar's show in 2003 I believe. So even before her sickness, she was out there lip synching and cancelling shows left and right. Sorry, I've just never bought her bullshit after I talked to so, so many disappointed tourists about her antics. Like I said I'm sure she's nice and I'm sorry that she's ill but none of that changes the fact that she's not being 100% honest when she tells these sob stories about having to blame the mic for her inability to sing when she wasn't even singing to begin with.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | September 3, 2024 6:52 PM
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I'm only 32 and the pain in my knees, legs, feet, is so alarming already that I'm really scared of aging.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | September 3, 2024 7:45 PM
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